Dachau Concentration Camp Wednesday, August 30th

CONCENTRATION CAMPS: KONZENTRATIONALAGER BETWEEN 1933-1945 The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933.

Dachau Concentration Camp:

DACHAU-LOCATION: Established by the Nazis in March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the northeastern part of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany.

SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke: Heinrich Himmler chose SS Lieutenant General Theodor Eicke to oversee Dachau Eicke developed procedures/regulations/etc… The daily routine at Dachau, the methods of punishment, and the duties of the SS staff and guards became the norm, with some variation, at all German concentration camps.

Prisoners at Dachau:

CAMP SECTIONS: The camp was divided into two sections—the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments. The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. An electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers surrounded the camp.

FORCED LABOR: Dachau prisoners were used as forced laborers. At first, they were employed in the operation of the camp, in various construction projects, and in small handicraft industries established in the camp. Prisoners built roads, worked in gravel pits, and drained marshes. During the war, forced labor utilizing concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to German armaments production.

PUNISHMENT AND TORTURE: -Standing torture -Random shootings -’Physical exams’ -Humiliation -Orchestra’s & Camp propaganda videos -Mental ‘games’…”You are going to die…”

Medical Experiments:

1st categories of Nazi medical experiments: -1st were those aimed at facilitating the survival of Germans military personnel.

2nd categories of Nazi medical experiments: -2ND were those aimed at developing & testing pharmaceuticals & treatment methods for injuries & illnesses which German military & occupation personnel encountered in the field.

3rd categories of Nazi medical experiments: -3rd were those that sought to advance the racial & ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview. -Establish “Jewish racial inferiority” -Mass sterilization of Jews, Gypsies, and other “Undesirables” -”My only regret is that I was not able to finish my work,” Josef Mengele

Other experiments… -"famine experiments" on Soviet prisoners. While the prisoners starved to death, he observed their bodily functions degrade; this included dizziness, headaches, edema and swelling of the lower abdomen. -assembly line sterilizations and castration/machines used as well -sterilization and castration experiments along with Horst Schumann at Auschwitz: look for cheap and fast ways of sterilization and found that x-rays worked quite well. -patients given typhus in order to perform other ineffective "curative" experiments on them. -hepatitis experiments performed on Jewish children at Auschwitz. -find an antidote for mustard gas: prepared cyanide salts to kill Auschwitz prisoners.

…Other experiments: -the Dachau hypothermia experiments/Freezing Experiments with Human Beings". -poisoned bullet experiments -injections of malaria and other tropical diseases on healthy people -experimented with ways to try to cure homosexuality by injecting synthetic hormones into men’s groins, hoping that this would alter their sex drives and preferences -gave patients various barbiturates and morphine derivatives to see if could brain wash prisoners and use mind control -took the blood from weak inmates or killed inmates by letting them bleed to death

CREMATORIUM: In 1942, the crematorium area was constructed next to the main camp. It included the old crematorium and the new crematorium with a gas chamber.

April 1915: Liberation of Dachau:

Bodies found when liberated:

SURVIVORS:

Monument commemorating the evacuation marches of prisoners from the Dachau Concentration Camp. Bronze sculpture by Hubertus von Pilgrim, 1991